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Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture. 

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

  • Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
  • Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
  • Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
  • Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
  • Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

      Find your path

      Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

      Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

      CMU Creative Writing student wins prominent national award

      by Sarah Buckley

      Central Michigan University Creative Writing graduate student Edwin Williamson’s list of successes continues to grow. Williamson is the 2022 winner of the Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets for his poem “Each Day I Press My Ear to the Ground.”

      The Dan Veach Prize is a national contest for college students named for the founding editor of Atlanta Review, a journal of national and international prominence that has, as its website says, published “. Poet Laureates and Nobel Laureates, often before they were famous.”

      Williamson says reading the judge’s kind words made this award extra special.

      “I was in tears over the level of acknowledgement and appreciation that was being held for my work,” Williamson said. “I’ve always been proud of my writing, but to have that pride reinforced and having this prize as something to show—it means a lot.”

      This is just the latest in a list of accolades. Williamson received a fellowship for the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute in the summer of 2022 and won the 2021 Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award for his poem “Life As We Know It,” an award sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. 

      Williamson will graduate from CMU this spring with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing. He completed his undergraduate degree from CMU in May 2022 with majors in Anthropology and English, Literature, Language and Writing.

      What’s next? Williamson is currently submitting applications to attend an MFA program in poetry next year. Keep your eyes on the skies for this rising poetry star.

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